Fact or Fiction: Data Tell the True Story Behind America's Urban School Districts
Standard & Poor's, School Evaluation Services2005
Standard & Poor's, School Evaluation Services2005
Administration for Children and Families, Health and Human Services June 11, 2005
Katherine S. Neville, Rachel H. Sherman, and Carol E. Cohen, The Finance Project2005
Islamic schools are in the news this week. Time profiles an Islamic pre-K-12 school in suburban Chicago that has a mainstream curriculum and typical after-school activities, but also maintains traditional Islamic practices like dress codes, separation of the sexes, and regular prayer and Koran studies.
On Monday, the Department of Education released extensive new guidelines for states, districts, and providers of supplemental educational services, a complex, contentious and confused area of NCLB. States have complained that they were unclear on how best to implement the SES provisions of the law and needed more guidance.
In this month's Policy Review, Paul Hill chronicles one key element of Britain's two-decade old education reform strategy, one that does an imaginative job of blending private largesse, innovation and management expertise with public education.
G. Reid Lyon, champion of research-based reading instruction (i.e. Reading First) at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and adviser to the Bush administration on scientifically proven effective reading programs and much much more, is leaving his government post to join a private-sector effort to develop alternatives to traditional schools of education.
This week, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel features a week-long qualitative assessment of that city's landmark voucher program. Reporters visited 106 of Milwaukee's 115 "voucher schools" and emerged with an interesting but mixed story.
Kudos to StandardsWorks founder and Fordham friend Leslye Arsht, formerly the senior advisor to the Iraqi Minister of Education, who has won the Good Housekeeping award for women in government. Arsht braved insurgents, logistical nightmares, and blazing desert heat to help the Iraqi government rebuild its K-12 education system. We can't think of anyone more deserving.